17 January 2017

Internships

The UK All Party Parliamentary Group
on Social Mobility The class ceiling: Increasing access to the leading professionsreport calls for a ban on unpaid internships in the professions and changes to recruitment in higher education.

The Group comments

it is clear that there
is more to be done to widen
access to the top professions in
our country. Research shows
that the UK’s top professions
remain disproportionally
occupied by alumni of private
schools and Oxbridge.

While some positive steps have been taken,
the overarching evidence from the inquiry and
available statistics still show that students from
disadvantaged backgrounds are less successful
than their more advantaged counterparts in getting
in to the top professions. In business, nearly a
third of the FSTE 100 chief
executives educated in the
UK were independently
educated, and in law, nearly
three quarters of the top
judiciary were educated at
independent schools. Yet
across the country, only 7%
of students attend private
schools.

This pattern is
mirrored, to varying degrees,
in a number of different
professions such as medicine, journalism and
politics and the civil service.
One of the most striking findings from the evidence
sessions held by the inquiry was that despite
the vast range of professions we spoke to, the
challenges they faced in widening access were
extremely similar. Many spoke of needing to tackle
unconscious bias, the lack of contextual recruitment
practices, and the fact that for some employers, they
just did not receive applications from highly able
applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The last point exemplifies how it is not only a formal
education which makes a difference to those from
disadvantaged backgrounds, but also an informal
education such as the learning of soft skills, along
with having aspirations and role models to admire
and emulate. Employers look for confidence,
resilience, social skills and self-motivation in
their employees, but for those who have had little
to no exposure to extracurricular activities, work
experience or mentoring, these skills can be difficult
to acquire. A clear message from our evidence
sessions was that we need to become better at
inspiring our youngsters to reach their full potential,
especially for those who start out at a disadvantage.
Our professions should reflect our communities
and our country, and employers themselves
would ultimately benefit
from harnessing the broader
experience and potential of
the country as a whole and
not just established groups.

This business case for
diversity was put forward by
many who responded to this
inquiry. By widening access
to the professions, organisations benefit from an
increased pool of skills and experience. Having
a diverse workforce which encompasses many
different talents, backgrounds and experiences can
help create a dynamic organisation ready to face
the challenges of the 21st Century. Businesses
need to be measuring and monitoring the social
background of their employees in the same way in
which they monitor protected
characteristics, and held
accountable for how well they
are doing in widening access.

The report states

Leading People 2016
found that almost a third
of MPs in the 2015 intake were independently
educated, as are nearly a third of those FTSE 100
chief executives that were educated in the UK. Of all
High Court and Appeals Court judges, nearly three
quarters attended private schools, as did over half
of the top 100 news journalists and over two-thirds
of British Oscar winners. This pattern is repeated, to
varying degrees, across a host of other professions.

It is not only the very top jobs where an
advantage to the privately educated exists. Research
by the Bridge Group recently noted that “73%
of those who came from the most advantaged
backgrounds before Higher Education were
in the most advantaged occupation groups six
months after graduating in 2012/13. 67% of those
from less advantaged backgrounds were in the
most advantaged occupation groups”, a gap of 6
percentage points.

This is reinforced by research the Sutton Trust
published in partnership with upReach in 2015,
which found that, three and a half years after
graduation, private school graduates in top jobs earn
£4,500 more than their state school counterparts.
While half of this pay difference can be explained by
the type of higher education institution attended or
prior academic achievement, the other half cannot
be explained by educational factors.

Over recent years, we have seen a greater focus
on diversity in the professions, with an improvement
in the number of women appointed to boards at
FTSE 100 companies, for example. The Coalition
Government set up a Social Mobility Business
Compact to encourage employers to be more
open to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Recently the Civil Service announced it was
reforming its recruitment process to encourage
diversity, while many major companies have
changed their admissions process and have set up
programmes aiming to widen access.

The Group offers Recommendations to improve access to the professions

A strategic approach to social mobility should
be developed

The issues preventing fair access to the leading
professions require cross-sector leadership and
real collaboration to solve.
The government should develop a national social
mobility strategy, linking the work of schools,
universities and employers to build a real business
case and practical plan for improving social mobility.
In doing so, the government should identify
champions and model initiatives in each of the most
selective professions that can collaborate and share
cross sector best practices, setting goals for each
sector to meet.

Employers in ‘elite’ professions should take part in
the Social Mobility Employer Index, being launched
next year by the Social Mobility Foundation and the
Social Mobility Commission.

Organisations should
be required to report on all measures of the index
to highlight how well they are doing in widening
access. Once piloted, this should be rolled out to all
organisations over a certain size and the index should
be considered by companies as akin to diversity
tracking and other protected characteristics.
Employers should learn from what works in their
own profession and from other sectors.

Financial barriers to accessing the professions
should be minimised

There are significant barriers to accessing
professions, particularly the most competitive and
those that are mostly concentrated in London.
The government should ban unpaid internships.

Employers need to review their work experience
policies to ensure access is fair and transparent,
ensuring that all posts are publicly advertised to
allow a more diverse range of candidates to apply.
After at most one month, interns should be paid the
National (or London) Living Wage.

Employers should increase efforts to reduce the
London-centric focus of recruitment, either by
increasing regional recruitment or outreach, and
at least fully cover travel reimbursement for any
interviews or work experience placements.
The Social Mobility Commission should continue to
focus on social mobility by geography – to encourage
the government and employers to create and
support routes for social mobility in those areas that
need it most.

Recruitment practices should be fair and
transparent

Employers should ensure that they are doing
more to encourage best practice with regards to
widening access and are helping to break down the
barriers graduates face when transitioning from
higher education into employment.

Employers should adopt contextual recruitment
practices that place attainment and successes
achieved in the context of disadvantage, including
underperforming schools and less advantaged
neighbourhoods.

Employers should ensure that all internships are
advertised publicly, and recruited based on merit
and not on networks. They should also ensure that
any work experience opportunities are advertised
publicly, following best practice.
Employers should be conscious of the impact of
recruiting from a narrow pool of universities in
the graduate ‘milk round’, and the social mix of
institutions, building on the work already being done
in some elite professions. Unconscious bias training
for recruiters should also be considered.

UCAS and universities should consider how to
modify the application system to allow for more
post-qualification applications than are allowed by
the current clearing system.

Careers advice for young people needs to be
significantly improved

Good careers advice can be transformative for young
people. It should be based on “what works”, so that
young people know all the options available to them
and what they would need to do to achieve them. Schools should learn from best practice on how
to support pupils’ choices, and use their own
destinations data to help inform their support.
Employers should commit to offering careers
support and partnerships that genuinely enhance
social mobility. This could be by providing mentors
and creating opportunities to raise awareness and
aspirations of their professions.

Universities should ensure careers services
are a core part of the university support system
and, in particular, target proven interventions at
disadvantaged students to improve their awareness
of career opportunities.

The Government should do more to encourage
education in later life and lifelong learning so
that people of all ages have access to education
throughout their lives. They can do this through
encouraging more people to take up postgraduate/
part time study loans and by advocating the benefits
of education in later life.

Aspirations, soft skills and extra-curricular
activities

Schools should encourage pupils to develop skills
beyond their core curriculum that are keenly
sought after by employers, such as resilience,
confidence, social skills and self-motivation.
Employers should pro-actively work with schools
and universities to help teach the skills that are
most sought after in the workplace.

Schools should actively identify young people who
could most benefit from mentoring support from
charities and employers.

Schools should also raise aspirations by
encouraging reading for pleasure, provide
educational trips and ensure that they are offering
out-of-school studying opportunities, sport and arts
provision for disadvantaged students at all stages of
education.

Schools should also encourage pupils to take up
volunteering or get involved in social action to help
build the skills that universities and employers
identify as attractive.

It goes on to make Sector-specific recommendations

Throughout this enquiry, evidence was received
from several professional sectors. Some specific
recommendations for these sectors are below but
should be considered in all sectors, where applicable.

Politics and the civil service

Political parties should actively use contextual
information when recruiting employees and always
pay interns the living wage. This could set an
example to other professions and encourage people
from non-traditional backgrounds to get more
involved in politics. The socio-economic background
information of staff should be monitored and
reviewed on an anonymous basis.

MPs and Lords should support the Speakers
Parliamentary Scheme to expand wherever possible.
MPs should look to draw up shortlists for
applications where 50% of candidates are from the
local area. This would help to combat issues around
networking and would allow the makeup of the MPs
staff to reflect that of the local population.
The Civil Service should ensure that all departments
collaborate to ensure that the image of working in
the Civil Service is more open and not intimidating.
The Civil Service should look specifically at
progression, performance, and pay, to lead by
example for other professions. The same rigour on
social mobility should be applied to the rest of the
civil service recruitment as is currently applied to
the Fast Stream.

Medicine

Universities should contextualise admissions to
study medicine, recognising that academic ability
is just one crucial part of being a successful doctor.
This should build on innovative schemes, such as
the ‘foundation year’ schemes already underway at
some medical schools.

Work experience opportunities for school students
should be coordinated to ensure all students,
regardless of where they live and their personal
networks, can get that crucial experience.
An effort should be made to encourage pupils to take
an interest in medicine earlier on in their academic
lives. This could be done in part, by schools and
medical colleges working together in order to expose
pupils to the possibilities of studying medicine.

Law, finance and professional services

Established professional bodies should drivehe social mobility agenda in law, finance and
accountancy. Where possible, initiatives to improve
social mobility should be coordinated to ensure they
can have significant impact, where it is most needed.
Employers should ban all unpaid internships and
need to review their work experience policies to
ensure access is fair and transparent.

All firms should undertake awareness-raising
activities to ensure that young people, particularly
those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are aware
of the opportunities to join their profession and the
requirements.

Arts and media

Building on the success of the BRIT School in
London, other schools and colleges should
encourage young people to develop their skills in
creative pursuits, regardless of background.
The business case for having more diverse groups of
people, in this case particularly those from different
socio-economic backgrounds, needs to be developed
in both the arts and the media.

The Government should ban all unpaid internships,
as previously stated, and employers need to review
their work experience policies to ensure access is
fair and transparent, ensuring that all posts are
publicly advertised to allow a more diverse range of
candidates to apply.

The government should provide proper support
and funding for local arts projects, some of which
could be done as part of the pupil premium
scheme, through which lower income families could
purchase additional educational support for pupils,
such as theatre visits and other cultural activities

In discussing internships the Group comments

Recruiters often favour experience as much as
aptitude, which the disadvantaged have least
opportunity to gain

A Highfliers analysis identified that nearly 30% of
accounting and professional services vacancies,
over 30% of consulting vacancies, over 55% of law
vacancies and over 50% of banking and finance
vacancies, are filled by graduates who have already
worked for the employer. Highfliers found that
nearly 80% of vacancies specifically in investment
banking were filled by those who had already
worked there, compared with less than 10% of
roles in the public sector. This suggests that work
experience is both crucial for entry into the most
elite professions and implies that recruiters are
favouring those who have already had experience
with their organisation.
The prevalence of unpaid internships has been
a widely acknowledged social mobility issue. In
2014, the Sutton Trust found that 31% of university
graduates working as interns were doing so for
no pay. The Social Mobility Commission found that
63% of cultural and creative, 56% of media-related,
and 42% of financial and professional services
internships advertised on the Graduate Talent Pool
website were unpaid. The Sutton Trust said that the
cost of a six month internship in Manchester could
set back an intern a minimum of £4,728 (£788 a
month), excluding transport costs which are usually
paid by the employer.

This inquiry found this trend as being particularly
acute in the media. The National Council for
the Training of Journalists (NCJT) said that the
extensive use of internships, the majority unpaid,
as a recruitment mechanism adds to the difficulty
of entry into journalism for those who cannot rely
on family support.
In its written submission, the
National Union of Journalists (NUJ) went further
and said that ‘unpaid internships have become
almost institutionalised in the media’ and inevitably
disadvantaged those who are unable to work for free.

In relation to Qualification bias the Group notes

Top professions favour Russell Group degrees and/
or post-graduate degrees and so are dominated by
most affluent groups
One of the most common issues the inquiry heard
was the practice of leading professions recruiting
from a narrow range of elite universities, mostly
in the Russell Group, in which people from
disadvantaged backgrounds are underrepresented
in (see section 2). The Social Mobility Commission
has identified that top employers are far more likely
to visit universities with a low proportion of students
from disadvantaged backgrounds to recruit.
For instance, in 2015, the Law Society found that
‘the type of university attended is one of the most
important elements to factor into a person’s chance
to receive a job offer from top law firms’.

On top of this, prohibitively expensive post-graduate
degrees or professional qualifications are also
required to enter many leading professions. This
is true in medicine, where costs can continue after
graduation for further study. The British Medical
Journal has estimated that in England, a doctor
can graduate with between £64,000 and £82,000
debt.
David Morley from Allen and Overy told
the inquiry non-law graduates require two years
of law school and his firm provides considerable
financial assistance to trainee recruits (eg paying
law school fees) including a relatively small number
of bursaries to support some students from less
advantaged backgrounds with the costs of going to
university.

The Law Society estimates that it costs
£25,000-£50,000 to qualify as a solicitor,
while the
President of the Bar Council said that qualifying as a
Barrister may cost up to £127,000.
51
In the media, the NCTJ said there is a requirement
for many new journalists to have postgraduate
degrees, which are often self-financed, meaning
young people frequently need financial support to
enter. This is supported by a report by the Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism, which found
that of those journalists who began their careers in
2013, 2014 and 2015, 98% had a bachelor’s degree
and 36% a master’s.

Leadership and confidence traits

Employers want recruits to show leadership
qualities, yet people from disadvantaged
backgrounds lack leaders in their lives as
examples to emulate.

There is an entire literature on ‘leadership in
business’ and there is a widely held assumption that
leading employers are looking for ‘natural leaders’
and their assumed associated attributes. The Social
Mobility Commission has noted how many firms use
‘competency or strengths based frameworks to seek
evidence for skills such as leadership and team
work’, or to identify ‘aptitudes such as resilience,
drive, enthusiasm and adaptability’.
The inquiry heard how leadership characteristics are
often associated with confidence. In its submission,
Brightside said that the issue of access into leading
professions is linked to confidence as well as
the educational attainment gap.
Dan Jarvis MP,
champion of the Speaker’s Parliamentary Placement
Scheme that offers paid internships in Parliament to
people from disadvantaged backgrounds, provides
its beneficiaries with confidence to interact with
senior parliamentarians and policymakers, which
is important for their later career.
Archie Brixton
said the support he received from upReach built his
confidence to commence a career in finance.
The link between confidence and career progress has
been quantified by the Sutton Trust in a report that
analysed the BBC’s ‘Big Personality Test’ to identify
the links between personality traits and career
earnings. The report found that highly extroverted
people – those who were more confident, sociable
or assertive – had a 25% higher chance of being in
a high-earning job (over £40,000 per year), with the
odds being higher for men than women. The report
also found that personality and aspirations were found
to be strongly affected by social background, showing
that people from more advantaged backgrounds
(those whose parents had professional jobs) had
significantly higher levels of extroversion and very
substantially higher economic aspirations.

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